


hysteria

by serenfire



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: M/M, and also very alone, coda to 5x10, ian wants to apologize but he's too late
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 21:23:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3624750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serenfire/pseuds/serenfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ian throws the first punch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hysteria

**Author's Note:**

> @anyone I know irl: do not read thanks

Ian sits on the plastic chair, blood crusting under his eyelids and fingernails. Handcuffs connect limp wrists to the arms of the chair, and he can’t focus on the metal, can’t blink fast enough to wash the echo out of his corneas. Blood on his tongue, marks on his soul, nothing resolved, but everything finished.

A man in uniform sits in front of the desk next to him, glancing intermittently at the file propped against the computer screen and at the screen itself. It’s Ian’s file, and Ian notices the green-gray of camo in the shine of a photograph attached.

He can’t look at who he’s not anymore, so he stares across the lit room. No one gives him a second glance, dressed in the monotone of the defeated. The clothes hang off him like a junkie’s skin, and the blood mixes with the hair draped over his eyes.

Ian throws the first punch and Mickey is on him, furious and receptive and so alive. It’s all Ian can do to hang onto the moment and revel in the attention - finally, fucking attention without condescension - before it’s over, and alcohol blurs into hope.

Ian’s hand is on fire, still aching from the one pull up he failed at as the sun’s rays leaked into hell. Before his buzz subsided to sharp pain, forehead against the stairs, before clarity so carefully sought shattered into rising hysteria.

(Never let them see the hysteria, never let them hear you laugh like the world screwed you over one day, leaving a gap in your mind large enough to wonder what’s missing.)

How long before his psychosis meds run out? How long before the grimy pills give up on him and the shadows wrap around the parts of his body Ian forgets about until the claws devour them, until he’s waking up in the early morning with unexplainable leg pains and blood in his mouth?

The monsters will come to him in army uniform, now. They’ll slip through the bars of his final cage and taunt him, make him relive all his moments of near-suicide, ask him if he wants to try again. Just like that, in the only sweet voice he’ll ever hear again.

(They’re voices were never a good substitute for Mickey’s. They will never capture his warmth, his protection, his wariness, his utter committed pleas for you to never leave, not again. You’ve royally fucked that one request up.)

Ian clenches his fists, remembering callouses of determination and sweat. Remembering feeling something - blisters swelling, still unable to stretch muscles to smile or frown, stuck in an endless loop of nothing.

Mickey puts his arm around Ian and they kiss, and Ian still can’t feel Mickey’s tongue on his own with the meds and the buzz but he can hear Mickey’s grin, he can see Mickey as intent on this as Ian wants to be. He can enjoy it.

(You can enjoy it, while it lasts.)

(You open your eyes again at the cold, sterile lighting of the building and know have already outlasted your joy.)

Mickey won’t leave him alone here, will he? Mickey can’t - Mickey will return, will at least visit from time to time, won’t he? He can’t just rid himself of the Gallagher curse (just like that) without at least saying goodbye, right?

Ian unclenches his hands. Feels fingernail marks on his palm as white as the crack Mickey won’t let him take, a shudder rolling down his spine.

(What if you never get to touch Mickey again?)

Ian throws the first punch and Mickey’s recoiling, snarling and priming to hook Ian in the jaw. He’s defensive, bleeding, wounded, and completely justified in everything he gives Ian. Ian’s not sure if there’s anger in his eyes, or just rote response to provocation (or utter confusion), and he doesn’t want know if he wants an answer.

They clean off with beer, washing away the deeper wounds with the liquid down their throats, and Ian’s body aches with the anticipation, the intensity of it all.

(The look in Mickey’s eyes says it doesn’t matter what happens after this betrayal. This fight is all that matters. This fight is the most important thing in Mickey’s life.)

Ian throws the first punch.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://www.tylerjosephstoast.tumblr.com)


End file.
